The Monitoring Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) is assessing Georgia's fulfillment of its international obligations against the backdrop of the political crisis after the parliamentary elections and the suspension of negotiations on EU accession, UNN reports with reference to Novosti Georgia.
A fact-finding mission headed by Georgia's co-rapporteurs, Claude Kern and Edith Estrella, is visiting Tbilisi from January 14 to 16. The PACE has emphasized in advance that this is a "routine monitoring visit" and that meetings with politicians "should not be seen as political support for legitimacy.
On Wednesday, the mission held talks with Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili and several other Georgian Dream leaders. Papuashvili insisted that the boycott of parliament is a common tactic of the opposition after every election. At the same time, he said that the government is not giving up on integration with the European Union and is doing "a lot of work" to that end.
Today, the co-rapporteurs met with representatives of civil society and opposition leaders. According to the head of the Girchi party, Zurab Japaridze, they talked about the "brutal tactics of the Georgian Dream against peaceful demonstrators.
"They were also interested in what could ultimately be a way out of the situation. We explained that there are only two points: the release of political prisoners and holding new elections," Japaridze said.
The Committee members also visited the leader of the opposition party "For Georgia" Giorgi Gakharia. He continues his treatment at home after representatives of the ruling party took him to Batumi.
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In addition, according to media reports, PACE representatives went to the Gldani prison, where they talked to 28-year-old actor Andro Chichinadze and 19-year-old activist Zviad Tsetskhladze. Both are being held in the case of riots during pro-European rallies in Tbilisi. According to the lawyer Tornike Migineishvili, the members of the delegation are well informed about the events in Georgia and "correctly assess the most difficult picture" in the country.
The beginning of the delegation's visit coincided with the statement of the Prosecutor General's Office in the case of falsification of the parliamentary elections on October 26, 2024. The investigation reported that at this stage it had not found evidence of fraud.
Commenting on the visit of the monitoring mission, the leaders of the Georgian Dream referred to this statement. At the same time, according to them, the legitimacy of the elections was confirmed by the OSCE/ODIHR report, although it stated that "numerous problems negatively affected the integrity of the elections and undermined public confidence in the process.